Kapre Aswang

Session 3

And they were never welcome in that pub again

14

JUN/16

The situation

We start at the point where negotiations between the characters and the R-Zee gangers (recently turned to vampirism) have broken down. The ganger’s drew knives, the characters drew guns. Rob (the gang leader) and his main lieutenant had botched their attacks, while Saul and Anthony had put nearly enough lead into Rob to take him down.

A small inturlude

Some days ago a heartwood aspect of the tree had merged with Evan, a tradie from down south who got run over by a train while tackling a fallen junkie off the track. Evan has been having a wierd day, and is just a little confused. He woke on an autopsy table to the sounds of surgical clamps falling from his body as it regenerated. Some time after wandering out of there he got arrested for public nakedness. The police refused to believe him when he told them his name. “Heroes funeral”, they said, “closed coffin cremation”, “train took off an arm and both legs”, “family and friends all flown home”.

All day he’s been wandering the streets in a confused state. Wearing donated clothes, without a phone, without any ability to access his own money, or contact anyone who knows him, and knowing deep within himself that he’s not really Evan anymore anyway. As the night gets colder he finds himself in the industrial wilds of geebung, aproaching a certain pub. Recognising the feel of other aspects of the Domain (The Tree), and that they’re in a fight, he rushes to help.

Back inside the beer garden

Things are starting to look grim. The gangers who’d been kept waiting in the dining room have piled out into the fight. Fresh vampires join those grappling Anthony and Saul respectively.

Erin circles with her switchblade to stab Saul while he’s held immobile. Anthony calls to her, “why are you attacking us?!” “You’re killing my friends” she screams back, stabbing some more, “I brought you here to save them! Not kill ’em!”

Rob recovers his poise, and although still heavily wounded, joins those holding down anthony and bites in.

From the street outside Evan hits the beergarden fence. It doesn’t break, and his attempt to jump and climb over leaves him sprawled on the foot path. The gate in the fence is padlocked shut, so he scrambles to his feet and runs down the street toward the front of the pub.

Donald manages to break his bottle over the skinny lieutenant’s head, dropping him. Donald turns to help saul, glassing Erin from behind. She whirls and the pair break off into a duel of switchblade verse broken bottle.

The lieutenant stirs (using the last of his vampiric blood to heal), but Belinda stabs him again with her kitchen knife so that he’ll stay down. She races over to help Anthony.

Anthony gives up even trying to out wrestle the three vampires piled on him. Instead he tries to Devour the heavily injured Rob, even as Rob bites into him trying to drink his blood.

Pushing in through the fleeing crowd Even starts up the front steps into the pub, arming himself from a pool table on the way through the front bar, “Now I’m in the queue!”.

Belinda pulls one of the gangers off of Anthony, (who is nearly unconscious and having to resist regeneration as essence in the Tree’s reserves dwindles).

Anthony manages to rip the first chunk free from Rob’s soul. The leader of the vampire ganagers’ eyes roll back and his body convulses, tortured screams ripping from his throat as the veins raise in Anthony’s hands and green streaks run up his arms.

Belinda keeps pressure on the vampire she pulled away from Anthony, dodging his attempts to grab and bite into her while trying to cut him with her knife.

Her fight backs into the fight between Donald and Erin just as Donald manages to get past Erin’s switchblade and slice her deeply across chest and throat with his broken bottle. Erin drops to the ground.

Spending will recklessly, (and down into stronger temptation states), Saul manages to gain enough advantage against the vampire gangers grappling him to bring his gun into play. The shot nearly blows the head right off one of the reinforcement vampires who breaks off and flees into the pub.

Evan meets the fleeing vamp in the door between dining room and main bar, impaling him with the pool cue (which breaks). The vampire drops to the floor unconscious.

Ignoring the bites of the one vampire remaining on him, Donald Devours one final fragment of Rob’s soul and it shatters. As Rob’s deader than dead corpse goes limp Anthony rises, the transformation still on him, and yells, “It’s done! You’re next” to the remaining vampires in the room.

The youngest of the gangers, who had been holding Saul, flees. This gives Saul, who is now Serenely Violent, enough elbow room to drop his gun and pull out the meat cleaver he pinched from Belinda’s kitchen. He hacks into the vampire still facing him, but somehow the big guy shrugs off the hefty blow.

Evan catches the young vamp ganger who fled, holding him in a progressively tighter headlock for the others to dispatch later.

The vampire who’d been trying to save Rob attacks desperately, nearly overwhelming the injured old man who begins a second attempt to devour.

The Donald turns to help Belinda and Belinda’s opponent tries to flee, but he fails to clear the fence and the pair courner him and take him down. Not before however Donald’s bottle finally shatters into pieces too small to use, cutting his hand badly.

With Belinda and Donald’s aid the vampire on Anthony and the big guy fighting Saul are taken down. The character’s have won the battle.

Aftermath

The characters show a marked prefference for using their ability to Absorb one of the soul fragments immediatly while devouring to grab any vampiric powers that they find. Potence and Celerity seem to be the most common powers the gangers have, with Saul lucking into a fragment of Obtenebration, and Donald somewhat perplexed to get a fragment of Auspex.

Finishing his vampire first Anthony crosses to Erin’s body. She still has a (fluttering) pulse, so he administers emergency first aid in an attempt to stabilize her condition. He succeeds, but barely (she’s a very tough ghoul who needs urgent medical care), only to have to warn away Saul who has fallen into full Perfect Introspection temptation state, wanting only to kill and devour any (non tree) life forms in front of him before finding a place to sleep and digest.

Anthony’s warning off is successful and Saul spends his last remaining will to leave instead of devouring Erin. He disapears over the beer garden’s back fence into the industrial estate wilds of geebung to find a place to sleep it off.

The others are left facing each other in a room strewn with corpses as distant sirens wail closer.

There we leave it till next week.

Status

The Tree is at level One, and has grown 8 out of 20 points toward next level. It has no raw essence and 30 points worth of mixed soul fragments in its reserve.